Faith in the state? Asian women’s struggles for human rights in the U.K.

Abstract

The discourse of multiculturalism provides a useful means of understanding the complexities, tensions, and dilemmas that Asian and other minority women in the U.K. grapple with in their quest for human rights. However, the adoption of multiculturalist approaches has also silenced women's voices, obscuring, for example, the role of the family in gendered violence and abuse. Focusing on the work of Southall Black Sisters, and locating this work within current debates on the intersection of government policy, cultural diversity, and feminist activism, this article examines, and critiques, the Labour government's current ''multi-faith'' agenda for its impact on Black and minority ethnic women in the U.K.KEY WORDS: Asian women, black women, domestic violence, multiculturalism, multi-faithism, religious fundamentalism, secularism, state policies, women's human rights Fem Leg Stud (2008) 16:9-36 Ó Springer 2008

Speaking about sexual abuse in British South Asian communities: offenders, victims and the challenges of shame and reintegration

“…Research examining why women from South Asian communities seem particularly hesitant to disclose sexual violence and abuse has revealed three key contributing factors: (1) victims often feel betrayed by the male perpetrators of these acts, who are often well known to them as members of the same family or community (Gupta, 2003); (2) victims often fear that they will not be believed, especially as the criminal justice system does not usually prosecute in cases where the only evidence is the victim's testimony (Gill, 2008;Patel, 2008); and (3) some women do not report sexual violence because they believe the assault was not "violent enough" to constitute rape.…”

Protecting Victims of Forced Marriage: Is Age a Protective Factor?

“…Further, if forced marriage is packaged as an honour crime and as outside the ambit of domestic violence, this has the strong potential to fix forced marriage as an issue pertaining to 'others', and therefore deserving of special treatment. The dangers of seeing forced marriage or other forms of domestic violence as a purely 'cultural' issue, in which South Asian or Muslim women in particular are represented as passive and in dire need of rescue by the British state, have been well argued by authors such as Batsleer et al (2002), Chantler et al (2001), Razack (2004), Siddiqui (2005), and Patel (2008). Some authors, such as Razack, warn against feminist activism and ideas being taken up in a racist manner by the state and in this paper we elaborate further on the relationship between 'race', class, age and gender and the ways in which feminist thinking and concerns can and are being taken up by the state in a manner which runs counter to the heart of feminist ideas.…”

Movement of Female's Rights in the World

“…This association is not basically accredited with the government associated with Saudi Arabic, and contains recently been informed not to bracket demonstrations (Okin, 1998). In a 2007 meeting, al-Huwaider described the aims: "The association will probably contain several leagues, using every single category chasing an alternative difficulty or perhaps correct... counsel for girls inside shari'a legal courts; environment the [minimum] grow older intended for girls' relationships; making it possible for women of all ages to keep up their unique extramarital relationships inside government businesses and also allowing them to type in government properties; safeguarding women of all ages from home physical violence, for instance actual or perhaps mental physical violence, or perhaps retaining your ex from reports, do the job, or perhaps relationship, or perhaps forcing your ex in order to divorce proceedings... " (Patel, 2008).…”